Dear Kenyans,
After 62 years of fighting corruption, Uhuru's eating is worse than Kibaki's, who looted at a greater rate than Moi, who stole more than Jomo, whose theft surpassed that of the colonials. The more stringent the GoK rhetoric against it is, the worse graft gets.
After 62 years of fighting corruption, Uhuru's eating is worse than Kibaki's, who looted at a greater rate than Moi, who stole more than Jomo, whose theft surpassed that of the colonials. The more stringent the GoK rhetoric against it is, the worse graft gets.
The problem is we have been trying to "fight corruption" without getting rid of the corrupt, colonial state whose systems sustain and incentivize it. As the sorry history of official attempts to "fight corruption" shows, this has been an exercise in futility.
The patterns of graft, as @KhamisiJoe's excellent book, Looters and Grabbers, shows, have not changed from colonial times. Whether it is land grabs; railway and public housing construction tenders; or cops and officials preying on citizens, the template was created by the Brits.
The state we inherited from our corrupt founding fathers in 1963 had been built on graft which was its lifeblood. That state was handed over to the very people who, at least among the miros, already benefited most from corruption. And they have kept it in the family ever since.
The colonial state cannot fight corruption. To expect that @UKenyatta will do it is to expect the impossible: that he will dismantle the very system that has put him where he is. He is a child of corruption, a beneficiary of corruption and now a protector of the corrupt.
We need to change our approach. The political will that is required to undo the system will not come from within GoK. We've already tried that. Demanding integrity from within a corrupt system is as effective as erecting signboards declaring GoK offices a 'corruption-free zone".
The work of uprooting the irredeemably corrupt colonial state is yet before us. There is no escaping it. The 2010 Constitution was a first, admittedly imperfect, step in articulating a common vision but like its 1962 predecessor, it cannot decree the colonial state into oblivion. 
A word is not the thing it signifies. A constitution is not the governance system it prescribes. In the end, the job of undoing the colonial system is a job for the citizens, not GoK. It is up to Kenyans to force the unpalatable change down the throats of those who run it.
We've forced change on them before and we can do it again. It won't be easy or quick or without risk. The work of reform never is. But to achieve it, we must be clear about the change we want. It is about a better system, not better Kenyans. Because the problem is not Kenyans.
